Rock and Roll Master; Lyric Analysis

Do you know an artist that became famous in 1970 and sang pop, folk, jazz, and country? I do and his name is James Taylor. James Taylor was born in to a wealthy family so when his career started, it wasn't such a big deal.The song that I chose, You've got a friend, was written in 1971. This song was a Carole King original. It was made to tell people that having good friends is great and that when you have good friends "They will come running." I chose these lyrics for two reasons. One because I didn't get any other songs and two because I thought it had great meaning. The themes that are in these lyrics that noticed I could relate to myself, the life of James Taylor, and the book Small Steps.

The first theme I am going to write about is relating the song to me."You just call out my name and you know wherever I am I'll come running."I can relate these lyrics to my life because I have great friends and family that I know will always be on my side and support me. Whenever, Wherever they are, they are willing to help and that is a great feeling.

The second theme that I am going to relate to is the novel Small Steps. "Ain't it good to know you have a friend." I can relate these lyrics to the novel Small Steps because Kaira feels that she can trust Theodore, or as we like to call him Armpit, is her only friend. She thinks that because she is famous, people will only like her because of her fame and money. When Theodore meets Kaira, this is the exact opposite. He thinks that she is nice, funny, smart, and has a very big heart. The two of them met when Ginny had a seizure.

The last theme I chose was to relate these lyrics to the life of the artist, James Taylor. " If the sky above you should turn dark and full of clouds..." I think these relate to his life because he had hard times in his life. It also means that even though dark times come, you should stay positive and then you will see sun light.

If it weren't for this project, I probably wouldn't know any 60's, 70's or 80's songs except for the ones on Guitar Hero! I realize now that even though this song isn't the type of music that I would listen to, it is really good. Meaning don't judge a book by their cover.

Biography

James Taylor started playing music when he was just a little kid. When he was fifteen, he got a guitar and that's when he really got into it. He is known for his songs You've got a friend and Fire and Rain. He is a songwriter as well as a singer. As you can tell, he was very busy! He started his career singing by himself, but then he started up a band a soon became a member of The Flying Machine.
James Taylor was born into a wealthy family in Boston. He played Folk, Jazz, and Pop. In 1965, Taylor checked himself into a mental hospital, where he began writing lyrics. His lyrics were mainly about tales of inner torment. His music changed overtime from Pop to Country to Jazz and finally to Folk. His band, which had two guitarists, Taylor and Joni Mitchell, a bass player, Lee Sklar, a drummer, Russ Kunkel, pianist, Carole King, and of course their band manager, Asher. Their first album was called Sweet Baby James.
James Taylor was on the cover of TIME magazine in 1971. After that, he hailed his accent to mature and restraint pop music. He was put into the POP MUSIC HALL OF FAME!

Introduction

So for Humanities, we just started a new project called "The Pop Music Project." For our first assignment, we had to find a song from the 60's, 70's or 80's. The song I chose was called You've got a friend by James Taylor.